


Battle Scars

by cymraeg



Series: Donnybrook [2]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Comfort/Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:42:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cymraeg/pseuds/cymraeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris learns that scars aren't always visible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Scars

Fenris wasn’t entirely sure what set them off – he and Hawke were both slightly drunk and cheerful, stumbling back to the estate after an evening at the Hanged Man; and they were most likely going to have sex anyway. But after surprising a cadre of lowlifes who had apparently been waiting to rob any late-night nobles that were unwise or unlucky enough to traverse Hightown at night, and subsequently slaughtering them to a man, the spark that leaped between the two of them was not half-soused desire but pure animalistic lust. He crossed the intervening space before Hawke even had a chance to sheathe his daggers, and shoved the other man up against the nearest wall; his gauntleted hands trapped Hawke’s wrists against the stone while he devoured Hawke’s mouth with ferocious kisses. Hawke responded just as viscerally, growling low in his throat and kissing Fenris back just as hard, biting the elf’s lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

Fenris snarled and transferred his attention to Hawke’s ear, nipping and sucking impatiently and grinding his groin against the other man’s. “I could fuck you right through this wall,” he growled, and Hawke responded by bringing a knee up into Fenris’s crotch. Fenris trapped it with his thighs and slammed Hawke’s wrists against the wall a couple of times to make him drop the daggers while he bit at Hawke’s neck. Hawke licked at one of Fenris’s ears and then worried the sensitive tip between his teeth, the sensation making sparks flare in Fenris’s vision. “You don’t have the stamina,” Hawke gasped into his ear, in the taunting, teasing tone that dared Fenris to try.

The struggle for dominance was common between them, a theme that accompanied nearly every one of their couplings, but it wasn’t an angry struggle; they simply passed control back and forth between them until one decided to give it up. They were both strong and both testing out the new waters their relationship had sailed into, and Fenris was enjoying it more than he ever thought he could. It was always passionate, always rough. This night, though, his blood was so high that he wanted to _own_ Hawke, possess and mark him. He pulled back long enough to yank one gauntlet off, and pressing a hand to Hawke’s throat, pushed his head back against the wall, growled “You’re _mine._ ”

_The Hurlock snarled wordlessly, and Kieran Hawke felt his feet leave the ground as the beast grabbed him by the throat and shoved him back against the stone of the bridge stanchion. Kicking futilely, Kieran dropped his daggers and clawed at the thing’s wrist. His lungs screamed for air as the Hurlock leered into his face, and his vision was beginning to darken; he still had enough presence of mind to think briefly that, given what was going on around him, blindness might be a mercy._

Fenris found himself skidding across the paving stones on his back, breath knocked out of him by the quick blows and sudden kick to the midsection Hawke had just delivered. Hawke hadn’t pulled any of them, and Fenris was catapulted from unbridled lust to genuine pain in the space of a heartbeat.

He fetched up against something and gasping, sat up; when he realized it was one of the dead robbers who had stopped his skid he staggered to his feet, drawing his sword automatically. He couldn’t see Hawke clearly as the other man was still in the shadows, but could see his stance; Hawke had retrieved his daggers and was in full fight-or-flight mode. Fenris whirled and searched the darkened courtyard frantically for the threat, but saw no enemies except the dead ones. He stepped toward Hawke and the daggers came up, not quite attacking but trembling on the verge, and Fenris finally understood that the threat was him.

_Blackness and pain overwhelmed him; the screaming battlefield drowned out by the rising roaring in his ears. Kieran’s struggles slowed, stopped; his hands dropping from the Hurlock’s wrist as he surrendered to that blackness, with just the faintest hope that he would escape the pain once that darkness took him completely._

_Then the crushing hand on his throat was gone; he found himself falling and the screaming night slammed back in on him with the force of a hammer blow. On hands and knees, gasping and retching, he barely registered that someone was attacking the Hurlock and hacking it to bits with more fury than style. The air he drew into his starved lungs was simultaneously as sweet as nectar and as painful as fire; but it restored him; he let out the first breath, convulsed briefly as his lungs rebelled and refused to draw another; then gasped again. His vision began to clear and the roaring started to fade. Unfortunately that made the screaming and the crashing sounds of the battle clearer._

“Hawke?” asked Fenris cautiously. “What’s the matter?” 

Hawke stared at him, or at least in his direction – it was hard to tell in the near-darkness – but didn’t answer. Slowly Fenris he sheathed the sword, and then, with exaggerated care, making sure to face Hawke the entire time, crouched down and retrieved his fallen gauntlet. Hawke’s head swiveled to follow him, but he didn’t lower the daggers or back down from the combat stance. “Hawke, we should go,” Fenris said. He took one step toward his lover, then a second, keeping his hands away from his body and making no sudden moves. He thought he saw Hawke relax, ever so fractionally, so he took a third step.

_The figure hacking and slashing at the now very dead Hurlock resolved itself into a wild-eyed Carver, and Kieran felt a wave of relief that almost made him black out again. “I thought you were dead,” he croaked. He sat back on his heels, still reveling in the ability to simply draw air into his lungs and let it out again. His throat felt like it was on fire and he could feel blood running down the back of his neck where the hurlock’s gauntlets had punctured the skin._

_Carver grabbed up the fallen daggers and shoved them back into his hands, then dragged at his arm, hauling him bodily to his feet. Kieran swayed a bit and leaned against his brother for a moment, unmindful of the fact that Carver was covered in a combination of mud and gore. He was no better off himself. Carver gave him a shake that made his head swim._

_“We have to get out of here, now, right now!” said Carver. Kieran fumbled with the daggers and let his brother drag him along in some unknown direction. The way was relatively clear although the ground was churned with blood and bodies. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing around him. Corpses littered the ground in every direction, both human and darkspawn, but there were many more human than there should be. Far above them darkspawn raged across the bridge, and the Tower of Ishal appeared to be burning from the top down. Off in the direction where the King’s vanguard had been was nothing but a seething, snarling mass of darkspawn._

_“We have to regroup,” Kieran gasped, struggling weakly as Carver dragged him along. “Our unit –“_

_“There’s no unit! No reinforcements! The king is dead and we’re done here!” snarled Carver, plowing on doggedly. “They’ve won and I don’t intend to die here!"_

_Off to one side, Hawke saw two genlocks take down a soldier even as he continued to struggle, and heard the man scream as his arms were ripped from his body. One of the genlocks lifted an arm to his face and began to eat._

_Still stumbling after Carver, Kieran began to run._

“Hawke,” said Fenris again. He’d finally stepped close enough to Hawke to see his face clearly. His eyes, green and vivid, were fixed on something that definitely wasn’t Fenris. Still being careful to move slowly and unthreateningly, especially now that he was within range of those razor-sharp weapons, Fenris spoke again. “Hawke. Kieran. Look at me.”

Finally Hawke did, and relaxed. Sheathing the daggers, he sagged back against the wall, and his head dropped as his hands came up to cover his face.

Very carefully, Fenris smoothed Hawke’s brown hair back. “Kieran,” he said again. Hawke took his hands away from his face and looked at him, finally really seeing him. “I’m so sorry, Fenris,” he said softly.

“It’s okay,” Fenris said. “It’s okay. Shall we go?”

Hawke nodded and pushed off from the wall. They walked to Hawke’s estate without speaking, but when they got there, Hawke told Fenris the story of Ostagar. And when they made love, for the first time between them it was slow and languorous, and Fenris kissed Hawke’s throat with infinite care. One thing loving Hawke was teaching him, he realized drowsily afterward, was that he was not the only one who carried scars.


End file.
